18 June 2013

Tuesday To-Do | Use T-Shirt Yarn to Crochet a Basket

At last here is the long overdue tutorial. Did you get a chance to make some t-shirt yarn? Here is what you need to crochet a basket using that yarn.

At least 2 balls of t-shirt yarn and a large crochet hook. I used a 9mm (US M) hook, but you can use an even bigger one. I found that anything smaller was difficult to use with the bulky yarn. You might also want to use a stitch marker to keep track of your rounds.

The base of the basket is made by crocheting in the round, and increasing each round by 6 stitches. If you need to brush up on your crochet stitches and terminology, I recommend checking out this Crochet School series at Crafty Minx. She teaches the SC stitch here, and crocheting in the round here. Note that I am using US terminology for this tutorial.

Instructions

Chain 6

Join with a slip stitch to form a circle

Round 1: 2 single crochet (sc) in each stitch around = 12 stitches

Round 2: 2 sc in first stitch, 1 sc in next stitch. Repeat 6 times to end of round = 18 stitches

Round 3: 2 sc in first stitch, 1 sc in each of next two stitches. Repeat 6 times to end of round = 24 stitches

At this point my work measures 5" so I will stop increasing. Withyarn this bulky it doesn't take many rows to get here! If you want to make a bigger basket, you just continue working in rounds until the base is the size you want. Simply follow the pattern of increasing, like so

Round 4: 2 sc in first stitch, 1 sc in each of next three stitches. Repeat 6 times to end of round = 30 stitches

Round 5: 2 sc in first stitch, 1 sc in each of next four stitches. Repeat 6 times to end of round = 36 stitches

etc.

Once the base is complete it's time to work on the sides!

Side Round 1: 1 sc in each stitch around

Sides Round 2---?: 1 sc in each stitch around

This is the easiest part and flies by quickly, as all you are doing is adding rounds of 1 sc in each stitch. Because you aren't increasing the sides start to curl up, making the basket shape:

After three rounds I ran out of red yarn, so joined the white

And did two more rounds before fastening off.

There you have it! You can do as many rows for the sides as you like, depending on how tall you want your basket to be. I'm going to use this one to keep small objects corralled.

If you have any questions, please ask in the comments. I'll be happy to help! And if you do make a crochet basket or two, I'd love to see!

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